CLUB NOTICES

Booking — Saturday, March 3rd, 2 pm till 3 pm. Booking — Sunday, March 4th, 10.30 am till 11.30 am. 3rd Sunday Running — March 18th, 10 am till 3 pm. Mid-week Workdays — Mostly Every Wednesday, 10 am 3 pm.

THESE WORK IN WITH MUSEUM “LIVE” DAYS AND OTHER

EVENTS WHEN HELD

N ISSUE No 311 … … … … … … March 2018

Clubrooms/Running Track at Heritage Park, SH14, Maunu, Whangarei.

Website: wmec.org.nz

3RD SUNDAY RUNNING

Despite some threatening clouds and fog patches the day turned out to be a good one for the treasurer. But the biggest problem was the humidity which the weather man said was in the 96-98% range.

That sort of heat/humidity is quite common in Whangarei because of the city’s position in relation to the hills in the area. Most of us “oldies” don’t take too kindly to that sort treatment and I (speaking for myself) was only too glad to get into the car and turn the air conditioning on.

The general public attendance was quite good and we had four trains in service carrying good loads but about mid-afternoon both steamers were withdrawn for various reasons and that left Santa Fe, DG 2585 and

DC 444 to carry on in the hottest part of the day.

The bell on the warning lights at the crossing seems to have decided to go on strike. Tony had an attempt to fix it but it would appear that there is something wrong with the clapper unit therein.

There was also a problem with the signals near the tunnel. On inspection it was found that the contact on the rail had been bent so that contact was lost ….. Toneeeee!!

Some good loadings were also witnessed on the “Big Railway” with their Peckett and this also applied to “The Tram”. For those of you who do not know what or who the tram is — it is one half of a pair of Lisbon trams that have been re-gauged from 900mm to 3’ 6” to be able to operate here. Wheel profile has also been changed.

There is quite some abundance of cape gooseberries at different places around the circuit. I decided that some harvesting was required. So at the end of the day I did the rounds and reaped quite a few berries which were promptly turned into jam that very same night.

1925 Lisbon tram No 526. It runs on Malley & Taunton trucks

Page 2 Northern Views

QUIZ — What is it?

See Page 4.

Whangarei Model Engineering Club (Inc).

Views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily the views of the editor or of the Whangarei Model Engineering Club

LIST OF MAIN CLUB OFFICERS

President: Rodney White. Telephone (09) 436 1185. E-mail; rtw@slingshot.co.nz

Vice President: Rankin Kennedy. Telephone (09) 430 8328. E-mail; jenandrankin@gmail.com

Secretary: Brian Mould. Telephone (09) 438 7600. E-mail; thewrinkles@clear.net.

Treasurer: Bruno Petersen. Telephone (09) 438 7600. E-mail; brunopetersen@xtra.co.nz

Committee Members — Colin Smith, Ian Mison, Tony Tanner, Lloyd Cross.

Newsletter Editor — Ian Mison. Telephone (09) 434 3125. E-mail; julianm@xtra.co.nz

Charters and Bookings — Rodney White. Telephone (09) 436 1185.

Postal Address: Whangarei Model Engineering Club (Inc), P.O. Box 10233, Te Mai, Whangarei 0143.

Club Telephone: (09) 438 9520 (Available Work and Running Days Only).

Palmerston North Model Engineering Club: “Locomotion 2018”, March 3rd and 4th, 2018.

Cartoon on British Rail problems.

Sustained Damage to Clubrooms!! (NOT OURS) This excerpt from one of Manukau Live Steamer’s members in their latest newsletter: “I went out to the club on Sunday February 11 to examine some reported damage and I found graffiti, broken bottles, damage to the walls from what looks like blows from a pipe and general rubbish. Did they think they could break through an 8in concrete wall or what? Also they broke off the 2-window shutter steel brackets where we would open the ticket office shutters. There was a signature on the wall under the name “King Faff”. Not sure what King Faff had in mind … probably nothing … to carry out this senseless damage. So again, we, the volunteer members of the

club have to repair the damage these no hopers do to our clubrooms week after week. However we do have to thank the council for their help painting our club building almost weekly to help keep the building looking graffiti-free. Cheers guys”.

FOOTNOTE: We are very thankful that nothing much along these lines happens up at our Maunu site, which is precisely why we moved from Tarewa Park in the first place.

Page 3 Northern Views Whangarei Model Engineering Club (Inc).

EXPERIMENTS IN GETTING MY ROGERS

“Q” TO RUN SUCCESSFULLY ON

WELSH COAL As the Rogers “Q” only has a narrow firebox and a 6’’ boiler, I set out to experiment with getting it to run well on Welsh coal. It is very possible to achieve plenty of heat with the Welsh steam coal but getting the correct air mixture and driving technique is quite a challenge.

For the past 18 months I have been reading Australian, Canadian, Argentinian and English articles on this subject in magazines and on the Internet. They all indicate that the old belief that air to the fire should be about the capacity of the funnel or slightly less, does not work when running on Welsh coal.

I began experimenting by reducing the ashpan venting and making closer grate bars but this showed little improvement in the running.

I then made a rosebud grate with 10mm by 12mm hole spacing that grew to 6mm before the engine would develop steam. I then continued experimenting by making a rosebud grate at 8mm by 8mm centres with 4mm holes centre drilled and tapered from the bottom. This reduces the air through the grate to 15% of the total surface area of the grate. This proved to be more successful as I was able to run with a loaded train for a whole day. On this day I found that I needed a very good fire on light-up, the blower on a small amount all the time when driving and standing and a shallow fire when running.

The other important thing was not to be tempted to rake, prod or fiddle with the fire as this put the fire out (there is no clinker and very little ash).

I have recently been experimenting with bringing hot fresh air into the firebox from under the grate. The first trial was with ½” 316 tube from the very front corner of the grate and bent back above the middle of the fire with a 3mm reducer in the pipe end.

This lasted for only a few rounds of the track before it was burned in half at which time there was a complete loss of vacuum and heat. On opening the firebox door a little, I could see the gases burning above the exit of the pipe before it burned off. This led to the making of a more robust pipe, with a 5mm air supply and a ceramic tip off a TIG welder to protect the more horizontal part from the heat. This still needs improving as the heat is still blistering and sagging the ceramic tip.

So! more food for thought and back to the drawing board. I will now remake the ashpan shallower and much reduce the air holes to help preheat the fire air. The grate can be made of mild steel as the fire is burning above the grate. I have found that the blast nozzle size can be increased slightly as the fire needs a constant draught. The fire seems to run best on a mixture of medium and larger sized coal.

This experimentation is only the beginning, more development is still required to feel confident of success.

The picture on the left shows what the heat does to the air nozzles. The far left nozzle (metal) doesn’t look very happy and the one next to it (ceramic) is starting to sag.

Picture on right shows the position of the air nozzle on the grate.

By Rankin Kennedy

Whangarei Model Engineering Club (Inc). Page 4 Northern Views

A4 Silver Fox emblem

Gresley’s A4 Pacific Silver Fox appears to be the only A4 with an emblem affixed to it. There were two, one on each side of the boiler and these were positioned on the boiler wrapper over the centre driving wheel. Sure, most British locomotives had cast nameplates or numbers but not emblems a such. The first four A4s were all painted silver with a charcoal grey smokebox cover, cylinder covers and wheel valances and were (in build order) Silver Link, Quick Silver, Silver King and Silver Fox. When built by the LNER, Silver Fox carried the number 2512, and pulled the Silver Jubilee train from London to Edinburgh at a speed of 113 miles per hour in August 1936. But over the following years received other numbers given by new owners. Silver Fox entered service on September 7, 1935 and was withdrawn from service on December 29, 1962. All the A4s were superb pieces of engineering and they were always favourites of crews. Various modifications and improvements were made over the years as production grew. Each of these were for the better. The earlier versions were reconfigured in the latter years.

ANSWER TO QUIZ ON PAGE 2:

Silver Fox in BR colours, sans wheel valances.

WEDNESDAY WORKDAYS —

Not much in the way of work on the site has taken place because of the stinking hot weather. One only has to take a couple of steps outside and he/she breaks into a sweat. Thankfully we didn’t get much of the recent cyclone that bashed the lower half of the country. Previous “blows” have caused damage (washouts, etc).

I have just heard that we are due to get a further bashing from another cyclone that is heading our way. This one is supposed to hit around about February 20th. At the last committee meeting a vote of thanks was extended to Colin Smith for his efforts on the paperwork required by officialdom and the gummint now that we come under the umbrella of Worksafe in conjunction with MEANZ. All this work was required for the auditor and for all of us in the future by undertaking the technical reports required.

I am sure there is a room somewhere in Wellington where all these minions and pointy heads gather and formulate all sorts of unworkable laws … mainly because they can.

Page 5 Whangarei Model Engineering Club (Inc). Northern Views

STATION

PHOTOS ABOVE:

General Pics from Anniversary W/E Sunday